The condition as a whole person

My fifth week of volunteering at St. Elizabeth’s school was quite different then my other visits. I had a lot of difficulty trying to get the students to concentrate on their classroom assignments. I was trying to focus in on their mind and intelligence the whole lesson. It was not till later on during the day that I realized I was not looking at the children as a whole person.
I did not take into account that Miles did not eat lunch that day, Beth did not sleep well the night before, and Bryan had a cold. I was very impatient with them and was only thinking one way. I was having trouble understanding why their minds were not processing this simple information. We had a basic spelling list with only six words on it, but they did not want to spell any of them.
Once I realized that I was forcing this information upon them, and they were not fully able to accept the ideas I was proposing, I backed off. I gave them time to relax a little bit and started to look at them as a whole person. Only then did I see how much they were suffering from their struggles.
My experience at St. Elizabeth’s School interrelates with John McClusky, “Lush Life” and Walt Whitman’s poems From “I Sing the Body Electric,” and “One’s-Self I Sing,” by the common theme of looking at the whole person. The whole person is not just the body, but also the soul and talent. In all of these works it is very critical to see the importance of our body and soul being connected. In order for a human to have purpose in life it is very important to have a connection with your complete self.
In “One’s-Self Sing,” we become aware of the significance of the glory of the whole person. Whitman says, “Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I say the Form complete is worthier fair (Line 4).” This shows that you can not just focus on one part of a human’s body. This can connect with my volunteer experience by helping me realize not to only focus in on my students brains, but their whole body and soul.
In Walt Whitman’s poem, “I Sing the Body Electric,” he puts emphasis on what the complete person is capable of. He separates the different capabilities that are important in males and females. Whitman says that the male body is connected with “action and power.” He refers to the female body as being like “the gates of the body and…the gates of the souls.” The author is referring that the female body gives us the chance to make another body and soul.
In John McClusky “Lush Life,” he talks about two characters named Earl and Billy, who try and compose music in their heads. Music is a big part of their lives and with time it becomes part of who they are as a person. This theme of seeing the whole person combines with my volunteer experince by showing how you must recognize all talents of a person.
In conclusion John McClusky “Lush Life,” and Walt Whitman’s poems “One’s-Self I Sing” and “I Sing the Body Electric, all show the importance of seeing a person a complelte indvidual. These works made me reflect a lot on my volunteering experince. They showed me not to be so judgmental about the human body!